Arsenal tops group but Wenger wary of draw

FOOTBALL: Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger says there is still plenty of work to do in the knockout stage of the Champions League despite a 4-1 success in Basel earning the Gunners top spot in their group.

A Lucas Perez hat-trick helped the Gunners home in Switzerland, meaning they will avoid Barcelona and Monaco, the two sides that have eliminated them in the past two seasons, as well as Atletico Madrid and Napoli.

But teams that Wenger's team can be drawn with include Bayern Munich, which knocked them out in 2013 and 2014, and one of Borussia Dortmund or Real Madrid.

"We can still have a difficult draw,” Wenger said.

"But there's less guilt when you finish first in the group because you feel you have done your job and you play the second leg of the first knockout tie at home.

"It is what we wanted but, at the moment, the difficulty of the draw will not be much different.”

Manchester City also qualified for the knockout stage with a 1-1 home draw with Scottish champion Celtic.

City finished second in its group, six points behind Barcelona, which ended the group games with a 4-0 thrashing of Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Napoli won 2-1 in Benfica but both teams qualified for the last 32.

Atletico Madrid kept hold of top spot in Group D despite losing 1-0 to Bayern Munich in Germany. Both sides progressed to the next stage.